


In regards to a Prince

by 8emezzo



Series: Snaywood [2]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, Harry Potter: Hogwarts Mystery (Video Game)
Genre: After Book 7: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Depression, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/F, F/M, Introspection, M/M, Penny Haywood - centric, Romance, Severus Snape Angst, Severus Snape Lives, Severus Snape Redemption, Severus Snape-centric, Sexual Content, Slow Burn, Slow Romance
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-05
Updated: 2021-03-05
Packaged: 2021-03-18 12:07:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,652
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29857836
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/8emezzo/pseuds/8emezzo
Summary: What if Snape had been saved from Nagini's bite?"He is disgusted by himself.Severus looks at his reflection in the mirror and hates his face, hates the wrinkles that remind him that he has spent nearly forty years of his life in anguish and resentment, remorse for having had killed the only two people who in their own way loved him. The only ones who did when he couldn't do it. Now Severus can't love himself, and he has no one to do it for him."Severus Snape is once again headmaster of Hogwarts, this time not by Voldemort's will, but by the unanimous vote of his former colleagues. The school of witchcraft and wizardry needs to be rebuilt and reorganised, so he hires new teachers, including Penny Haywood, his former student, as Professor of Potions. New beginnings, new relationships and also new problems will mark Snape's physical and mental journey, as he searches for his place in the world, his identity and his true will.
Relationships: (past) Penny Haywood/Skye Parkin, Draco Malfoy/Harry Potter, Filius Flitwick & Severus Snape, Harry Potter & Severus Snape, Lily Evans Potter/Severus Snape, Minerva McGonagall & Severus Snape, Penny Haywood & Everyone, Penny Haywood/Severus Snape, Severus Snape & Everyone, Severus Snape/Original Female Character(s)
Series: Snaywood [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2195193
Kudos: 9





	In regards to a Prince

  


  


  


Time passes, it flows, even if people are left behind, stuck with nightmares that seem to arrive even in real life. Time does not care about wars, dramas, suffering people. He, together with the hours, the days, the minutes, the seconds, flows, without anyone being able to do anything about it. Time, after all, does not care about anyone other than itself and its goal. Severus Snape, listening to the ticking of the clock, compares it to his old dark lord. Instinctively he looks at his arm, his bare skin is wet because he has just stepped out of the shower. The dark mark is gone but still burns in his consciousness.

  


‘ _You were a filthy Death Eater too’_ , he tells himself, ‘ _the filthy murderer of Albus Dumbledore.’_

  


Guilt is what speaks, what makes it hard for him to get up on mornings like these, when there is a new and uncertain beginning. It makes it hard for him to eat, as a lump in his throat stops and stays there stuck, preventing him from speaking and breathing. He can only swallow and hope he doesn't open his eyes again the next day.

  


He is disgusted by himself.

  


Severus looks at his reflection in the mirror and hates his face, hates the wrinkles that remind him that he has spent nearly forty years of his life in anguish and resentment, remorse for having had - and killed - the only two people who in their own way loved him. The only ones who did when he couldn't do it. Now Severus can't love himself, and he has no one to do it for him. 

  


Snape hates himself.

  


He touches his face and almost scratches it, wanting to hurt himself, to find a strange alternative way to detach completely from himself. Then Severus touches his hair, black and wet, and sees how long it has become: it now reaches down to his shoulder blades. How long has it been since he cut it? Would it help? Why take care of himself when he can do nothing but being disgusting?

  


Then Snape looks at his neck, the wounds from Nagini's bite are permanent, they will remain on his skin and in his mind forever. It seems like centuries ago, it all seems to have happened in one long instant.

  


  
___________

  


_The magical cage that held Nagini envelops his face and shoulders. Snape's eyes widen in horror, but there is nothing he can do. The snake strikes him repeatedly in the neck and he feels hot streams of blood leave his body._

  


_Sverus falls to the floor as he vaguely senses that Voldemort is leaving the room._

  


_Snape is as scared as he has ever been in his life. He is dying, he knows he is dying with no chance of salvation, but that is not what scares him. After years of horror and war, of betrayal and secrets to bear, he would have welcomed Death with relief, knowing that he had finally completed his task._

  


_But Snape has not: he has not completed his task, and that is what frightens him, more than the knowledge that his life is fading away. Severus tries in vain to dab at his wounds, while cursing himself for not being able to do what he was supposed to._

  


_"Potter!" he pleads in his now not too lucid mind "Potter, I need you NOW!"_

_Almost in answer to his mute prayer, Harry materialised in the room and knelt down beside him._

_"Is it possible?" thinks Snape "It must be a creation of my mind... or maybe not?"_

  


_With a superhuman effort he grabs the boy by the lapel as he tries to gather his thoughts. "You must understand" he thinks, "you must know"._

  


_"Take it," Severus says in a rough voice, as with what little strength he has left he pulls out all the most important memories related to Lily and Dumbledore, thus completing the last mission he was given by the Headmaster, that of warning the boy what his final task would be._

  


_Harry pushes Snape's thoughts into the empty flask in his hand._

  


_"I did it," Snape thinks, "I did it. Lily, forgive me!"._

  


_"Look...at...me" Snape pronounced with difficulty. Their eyes met, the green of Lily's eyes enveloped him. And he abandoned himself to his fate._

  


_____________

  


_"I'm glad you've been better, Snape," Harry tells Snape, at the bedside of the former potion master’s hospital bed._

  


_This is the first sentence Severus hears after waking up._

  


_Severus' eyes are tired, moving slowly. He feels like a newborn baby, having to readjust to the new sounds, the new smells around him. As soon as his brain can comprehend what the Gryffindor said, a new feeling comes over him. Before he would have called it hatred, now simply annoyance._

  


_"For Merlin’s sake, Potter!" Snape swears, finding himself speaking, and for a moment he's glad his edgy attitude never got some snubs. "Isn't hell a big enough place for you? Must you torment me from here as well?"_

  


_Severus never believed in Heaven or Hell, he always thought he would become worm food in the underground, but surely now he is not in the underground and there is no worm. Looking at the place around him, so white and antiseptic, he could describe it as Heaven, but Potter's presence immediately changes his mind._

  


‘ _It must be Hell’, Snape says to himself. It's a right but merciless law of opposites. Years of tormenting a child because he looked too much like his father, and now that - not so much anymore - child torments him in the underworld._

  


_Harry smiles, chuckles, and Severus would burn him alive with a look if he could._

  


_"Neither of us died," Harry asserts, "I did, once, actually, but I'm still here."_

  


_"What a shame," Snape comments sarcastically, as he takes a better look around. No, it's not hell, it's a hospital room._

  


_He doesn't find much of a difference._

  


_The knowledge that he is one of the survivors, that he is still alive, grows heavy inside him, a lump in his throat that he swallows, hoping not to be heard._

  


_It would be foolish to lie to himself and say that Snape **never** wished he had opened his eyes again in that instant. The truth is that he would have wanted to die, to switch off completely, so his life, along with his regrets, would have ceased to exist._

  


_But unfortunately Snape is bloody alive, he feels the energy of life coursing through his limbs, which have been dormant for too long and need to move. He sits up in bed, his arms trying to withstand the effort._

  


_Suddenly Severus touches his arm, the one that must have the black mark. It **must** be there, but it isn't. He rubs his arm, as if that would make the snake and skull reappear._

  


_The mark is gone and Voldemort with it._

  


_"Voldemort is dead, Snape," Harry explains to him, serious, his gaze weighed down by the harshness of war. Snape is about to yell at him not to use that name but stops himself, because, after all, what's the point now? Then Snape doesn't need to ask James Potter's son any more, because the boy puts on his glasses and starts explaining how Severus survived ("It's all thanks to Hermione's blood replenishing spells," Harry exclaims, proudly for his friend), how the other Death Eaters were defeated, that he'll leave him a paper to make Snape understand it all better on another visit, ("Your visit of today is enough, Potter," Severus sourly replies) and how the Dark Lord was defeated. His voice falters, however, when Harry realizes that he is admitting aloud that he has revealed Snape's private history to half the magical world._

  


_"POTTER!" shouts the former potions teacher, then surprising himself with how much air he has in his lungs. "How dare you, you insolent-?!"_

  


_"I didn't think too much," admits Harry, desolately "I'm so sorry..."_

  


_"You don't think," Snape blurts out, "like every Potter," he spits, acidic._

  


‘ _Wonderful’, Severus thinks wryly, now the wizarding world knows all about him and Lily. His reputation as a dreary, acidic dungeon bat is compromised and he feels weak and vulnerable. Snape will have to work twice as hard to strike terror into people again._

  


_At least, though, he has to admit in the following days, that his reputation as a Death Eater is gone, which isn't necessarily a bad thing. Reading the newspaper Harry brought him, he found that he was recognised as a hero by the Wizarding World, almost on a par with Potter. Severus had also been cleared of all charges by the Winzegamot. Which doesn't fill him with pride, but at least Snape is satisfied that his work has been recognised. But the message that the former potion master wasn't on the wrong side of the war must have been passed on with some difficulty, because Potter later shows him pictures of his house in Spinner's End, destroyed by vandals, who apparently still can't forgive his double-dealing. And if others can't forgive him either, how could he forgive himself?_

  


_The next day was a great response to his inner anxieties. Harry Potter came in tow with Minerva McGonagall. The boy brought him his usual newspaper, placed it on the bedside table and left, leaving Minerva alone to talk to Severus._

  


_The first thing she does is slap him in the face._

  


_"Good morning to you too, Minerva," Snape replies sourly, massaging his sore side._

  


_"How could you, Severus? You could have told it to me and the others! We could have helped you, we could have...", Minerva's voice is slurred with agitation and the tumult of emotions she feels: anger, sadness, worry, overwhelm. Strange, for a proud person like her, but this is a different occasion._

  


_"No, Minerva," he retorts, interrupting her, "it would have only made me more vulnerable, and endangered you. It would have just been a bad idea."_

  


_Minerva makes to reply, but her attention is caught by the scars on Severus's neck. They are so large, so red, that it is actually strange not to notice them. She looks at him with concern, and it makes him uncomfortable._

  


_Severus covers the wound with his hand, casting a murderous glance at his former colleague. "Stop it."_

  


_"I didn't do anything, Severus," Minerva says cheekily. She knows, too, how much her worried look annoys her former pupil, but she can't help but feel that way. Worried like a mother seeing her child hurt._

  


_"You know, Minerva," he quips, annoyed, "Don't look at me like I'm a beaten puppy, because I'm not."_

  


_The Transfiguration professor could have told him, "It's all over, you can stop being so defensive all the time," or "Let us protect you, like you protected us," but instead she murmurs, "We were friends, Severus."_

  


_"We were," Snape repeats, in a strained tone. He sighs through his nostrils._

  


_Minerva then unexpectedly hugs him, Severus feels as if he has been stormed by none other than what makes him most uncomfortable: emotions. He doesn't know what to make of that hug, the wizard thinks, but he certainly knows he doesn't despise it entirely._

  


_"We still are, Severus, aren't we?" asks Minerva, and Severus doesn't know how to answer, not in words at least._

  


_Shyly, uncomfortably, he returns it. The sense of warmth Severus feels almost brings him to tears. It is strange and bizarre to be touched in this way, as if he were a human being, like everyone else. When was the last time someone hugged him? Maybe, the last time, he had only been fourteen, and it was Lily. He feels the need to cry, to let it out, to throw the war - the one that was there and the one inside \- out of his mind, out of his body. But he waits for Minerva to leave first._

  


_In tears, alone with himself, he retraces the path of his entire existence, from when he had been just a child looking for affection, to the adult he has become and whom he despises perhaps as much as he despises Potters._

  


_____________

  


_The next day Harry does indeed arrive, with some photos with him._

  


_"I took them from my maternal grandparents' house," he explains, "You're in some of them, it seems only fair that you keep them."_

  


_At the mention of Lily, or anything related to her, Snape's attention is immediately caught. Severus, after all, only accepts Harry's presence to see Lily in those green eyes again. A part of him, the part Snape despises, the part that is the most fragile, wants Harry's presence because he is so terribly lonely. He's annoying, too much like his father, but every now and then Snape sees Lily in him again, and he can't let go of the one fragment he has left of her._

  


_"Don't you want to keep them, Potter?" he asks, not understanding why the wizard gives one of the few memories of his mother away so easily._

  


_Harry smiles, "I simply think you have more right to own them than I do," he says, "you're here too." The 'boy who survived' hands him the pictures and Snape immediately recognises himself in that little boy with the long black hair, the ever-dull complexion and the second-hand clothes. Severus nods._

  


_"I want to give them to you, yes, but on one condition," Harry continues and Snape looks at him crookedly._

  


_"What more do you want from me, Potter?" he asks annoyed, "Wasn't all the time I wasted protecting you from your stupid mistakes not enough?"_

  


_"For that I am eternally grateful, but I know you did it for her, and I imagine my mother would thank you too. I also think she would thank you if you told me what happened in those pictures," Harry explains quietly._

  


_'So that's what he wants?’ Severus thinks. ‘For me to tell him about those pictures?’ He looks at Harry, at his green eyes, but he no longer sees Lily in them. She's there, she's always present in his memories, but there's something else in those eyes too: Snape sees Harry for what he is, an orphan who has always desperately wanted to know his parents. A lonely child. He snorts, already regretting what he's about to do - ‘Potter always gets what he wants, damn it! ’- , thinking about how war could have made him softer, and picks up a picture, of him and Lily eating. "Your grandmother made pancakes," he explains and Harry looks at him surprised but pleased, "Lily loved them."_

  


_Harry is as alert as ever; Severus has never seen him so focused in all the years he's been teaching him potions._

_Maybe, Severus thinks, Potter isn't so bad; at least he gives him a chance to think about Lily, to talk about Lily, and that makes him feel good._

_It makes them both feel good._

  


_____________

  


_The next day, however, he is visited by Minerva._

  


_"The other teachers and I had a meeting," she begins, as if she is about to make an important announcement._

  


_Severus raises an eyebrow, putting away the magazine ‘About mushrooms and other things’. "Why are you telling me this? I don't teach there any more, Minerva," he says, feeling relieved that he won't have to try to instill anything in knuckleheads any more._

  


_The Transfiguration teacher continues, "By unanimous vote, we have decided to re-elect you as the new headmaster of Hogwarts. All of us on the faculty are eternally grateful for all the work you did during the war, and before."_

  


_Surprise and disbelief rule the face of the newly elected headmaster of Hogwarts._

  


_____________

  


  


_It's July, but it seems like winter has passed at Hogwarts. The wind rubs the skin, the trees are dry, bare. The Second Wizarding War is over, and of it only the ashes, the dust and blood, the shadows of the fallen._

  


_At the gates of Hogwarts, Snape can't help but look at the castle that was once his home; now it is destroyed, rubble, and looking at it so shattered makes him feel shattered as well. Destructed, senseless. He feels all the blood that had been lost in the battle, the wounds that had healed came back to burn; after all, they would never really go away. He looks at what had once been gardens, now a temporary graveyard for who knows how many young lives broken by a war far bigger than themselves._

  


_Snape felt hesitant about returning to Hogwarts as headmaster. The time before, when he was in charge of Hogwarts, he did so on Voldemort's orders. Becoming headmaster again, even if this time by a unanimous vote of all the teachers, would still give him that bitter taste back in his throat._

  


‘ _Not fair’, Snape says to himself, considering what he did to the last headmaster._

  


_But he no longer has a home, nowhere to stay, except for Hogwarts. It's a coercive situation; Snape has nothing left, except the school of witchcraft and wizardry, which can be his home. Hogwarts has always been his home, he thinks, as he arranges the items taken from his old home at Spinner's End, now unlivable, into the small room of the castle he has taken for himself._

  


_At first he settled in one of the teachers' residential rooms, one of the smallest and most cramped. Minerva, the meddler that she is, as soon as she found out, insisted that Severus move into the headmaster’s room._

  


_Of course, of all the rooms, the headmaster's is the biggest and most luxurious._

  


_Snape thinks he doesn't deserve it. Snape sees it, and he can't help thinking about that night on the tower, that green light, his own voice saying "Avada Kedavra", the Morsmordre in the sky, Dumbledore falling and dying._

  


_That memory haunts him even in his dreams. He does not sleep, he cannot. The coffee, the extimulo potion, are now his two best friends._

  


_McGonagall took care of the reconstruction of the building, previously destroyed during the war, while Severus chose to take care of the reworking of the school programs, with the help of Professor Flitwick. Working with the Ravenclaw has been thoroughly enjoyable. Snape does not deny the respect he feels for the other wizard. Filius has been his teacher, he is a man of excellent culture and extraordinary intelligence. What else can Severus feel but respect and perhaps admiration? After all, he thinks, with ill-concealed pride, that only the best are eligible for teaching careers. It was nice, and still is, to have that consideration, in his new role as headmaster. With some surprise, he observes how the Charms’ teacher tries to joke with him, to be friendly. Is he really considered a hero even among his former colleagues? Apparently the answer is yes, but doubt is always present in him. You're not a good spy if you don't keep an eye on everyone around you, if you're not always on the defensive._

  


_Severus doesn't have to be a spy anymore, but his brain doesn't seem to realise that._

  


_After the school programs, Snape took care of the new recruits. He is no longer a Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher, so a replacement is needed. Taking his place is one of his Slytherin former student, Michael Kaelis. Kaelis was his student for a year, Severus was just 21 and Michael was in 7 th grade. Snape difficulty gave the position he always wanted when he was a teacher. The job interview, which took place in his new headmaster's office, involved a large number of theory questions and a near duel. The new Hogwarts headmaster had no qualms about using the Imperius curse on Kaelis, who masterfully managed to resist and fight it. Then it was the turn with the hiring of a new Muggle Studies’ teacher, and the interview was topped by a Muggle-born Gryffindor, Lillian Louis, four years younger than him. Severus tried very hard not to notice how she resembled both his Lily in appearance and name. He wondered again if he hadn't really ended up in Hell._

  


_Finally, he hired the new Potions teacher. Slughorn had decided to retire from teaching for good after the Battle of Hogwarts, leaving the position vacant. Only Penny Haywood passed the interview exceptionally well. Severus had no doubt of that, ever since he saw the former Hufflepuff's name among the candidates. Severus remembered her as one of the best students in the classes of 1984._

_He asked her theory questions and examined her while she performed a potion. The result was obviously perfect._

  


_By the end of August, the castle had been rebuilt, the teachers hired and the school programmes decided._

  


_Hogwarts was reborn and so he hoped to be too._

_____________

  


He thinks it's easier said than done.

  


Severus takes a green suit from the wardrobe, similar to his usual black suit, the only differences are the color and this one makes shoulders more prominent. He also decides to take a long, silver scarf, which was given to him by Minerva and Filius. If many had thought it out of keeping with his type of clothing, Severus would have grumpily reminded them of the colours of his house.

  


Green and silver.

  


And like any good Slytherin, Severus tries to cover the scar on his neck. He's not a Gryffindor, he doesn't display it proudly. _It makes no sense._ For Slytherins, scars indicate failure, because if you know how to guess right about a plan, you don't get hurt by it.

  


Having finished putting on his shoes and teacher's cloak, he looks at his reflection again.

  


Severus Snape, headmaster of Hogwarts.

  


He would never have thought that before, but it sounds _good_ now.

  


He sighs, preparing for his speech in the Great Hall for the start of the new school year.

  


  



End file.
